


Undisclosed Experimentation: Chapter 2, Research and Development

by Dr_Shenk



Series: Undisclosed Experimentation [2]
Category: Emmy The Robot (Webcomic), Nandroids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:47:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28341882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Shenk/pseuds/Dr_Shenk
Series: Undisclosed Experimentation [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075418
Kudos: 2





	Undisclosed Experimentation: Chapter 2, Research and Development

There was so much of a ruckus between the five men chosen to make the world's next highly advanced androids.   
Gynoids specifically designed to act as universal nannies, and in more dire situations, be used as crime deterrents. That part was, of course, the two-cents worth of insistence by the parent company's country government. They had to be able to defend themselves, or at least others. They would be able to kill, but would know when not to kill, and who.  
All of the five parties involved were of course a bit disturbed by this. Hence, many compromises were made.  
  
They agreed to make these androids capable of combat, only if there could be a test group meant specifically for military and espionage use, and another meant for the more social experiment side of things.  
The first group, numbering five bots in all, would be made specifically for espionage and infiltration. They would be designed to be capable of lifting 200 lbs(90.7 kg) with a striking force 760 PSI. This was easily compensated for with the combined design of the near-human skeletal structure, contributed by Citadel Dynamics, being cast in a titanium alloy; combined with the rigging of a carbon fiber weave muscular apparatus with graphene elastics with actuators and power distribution, contributed by the Yamamoto Corporation. Naturally, the commissioners wanted a robot that understood pain. Not just how to dish it out, but also to try to avoid suffering damage to possible hostages, or to person. That was very easily accomplished by the contribution of Volkman's synth-flesh with an advanced sensory array that had a Sterling tweak here and there in design and reach to all extremities.  
They would also have to be able to blend in visually to any large collection of people or setting. With the advanced sculpts of body modeling and sculpts for faces, again, Yamamoto added in it's expertise. But on top of that was the machinery of facial actuators and artificial eye tech from Murdoc Conglomerate, combined with their facial muscle mapping, could make the artificial face perfectly imitate human emotions.  
Finally, they had to understand the logic and emotional drive of their targets or escort subjects, be able to empathize and recognize what made humans do what they did. That, or at least compensate for such things and try to accommodate using logical resolutions.  
This was where both Sterling's standard Psychology programming processes, and the advancements in artificial interaction from Murdoc Conglomerate, would shine their brightest. Robots with the ability to cry their own tears and understand why humans cried. It would help with possible psychological manipulation, and perhaps therapy.  
Lastly, of course, they would be designed to be capable of even using...more carnal means of suggestion in order to meet desirable ends. This was the part of the design process where Yamamoto and Volkman took over. Sterling begrudgingly helped in making sure that their contributions would be hydrophobic. Making the other parts of the artificial anatomy water-proof was a simple thing for Mr. Sterling.  
  
An equation in how all the anatomical puzzle pieces fit, as well as certain seals and gaskets here and there, and they finally had a body. They tested it without a fully formed brain, going through seven test bodies with an extremely basic survival program set-up proved that the bodies could in fact feel pain, pleasure, discomfort and comfort. In fact, one tester discovered that the bodies were capable of a sense of fatigue, or ennui. Of course, that was after hours upon hours of little to no charge and still being made to perform tasks. One of the test bodies seemed to throw a tantrum, tossing around the task objects in very much the same way a grouchy, sleep-deprived teenager would.  
So many broken plates and tossed pieces of cloth, to say nothing of objects like vases and children's toys.  
Before the body was shut down for that test, it had sat in a grumpy, arms-crossed, Indian-style sitting posture. The empty eyes were furrowing a brow as the lips bunched in a pout.  
Sterling, Murphy, and good number of the techs had a good laugh at that.  
  
Next step...was the artificial mind.  
All of the technicians, especially a man who was considered a rising star at Murdoc Conglomerate that had been moved to America to help with some of the designing and programming processes in the project, were now working with the standard Sterling programming, finding a way to perfectly integrate the emotional display drivers with all of the sociological and psychological programming.  
For days they tried to get the programming to coincide and reconcile with each other, but Murdoc's programming and Sterling's just didn't want to gel. It left both the red-haired head man of Murdoc and his American, gray-haired co-crafter of Sterling scratching their heads for a year. The completed bodies meant to be shown to the American government were collecting dust under tarps as the heads remained practically empty. Neither man wanted to put a buggy kind of brain into a well-crafted quintet of bodies, that just wouldn't add up. Besides that, the American military complex would not be happy that their commission went to waste(like many projects before).

One day during a quick revelation from the Irish employee from Murdoc, something came up.  
"Sir, heaven help me, I can't sit the lab right now! My wife, sir!"  
The tall, green-eyed man with auburn-red hair scattered to try to leave the building as swiftly as possible.   
Security tried to slow him down with no luck. This one technician was a strong, tall individual. Late twenties, a handsome face with honest features...twisted into stress and fear. A fear that any man feels when his beloved is in desperate need of him. He had already bowled over six security guards, even taking a taser to the leg, which ended with the security guard getting kicked sharply in the head.  
Sterling called after the man as he saw Murphy try to chase the intelligent tech-head rushing down the Sterling company halls.  
He flagged him down, a few guards beside him as he put himself in the forefront with a look of confusion.  
The fatherly look of worry was enough to finally make the tall young buck of a man stop with some stomps of desperate slowing down.  
"What's going on, Daniel?" John Sterling asked the exasperated elder Irishman still in a lab-coat, with the younger man from Murdoc quickly tapping on his heels, a look of desperation painted all over his face.  
"Me wife, sir *pant-Cough* Me wife's havin' our baby! *Cough* She's havin' it Roight Naew!" answered the young Celtic technician, in disregard to his employer, Daniel Murphy, about to answer Sterling.  
"Sterling! *wheeze* This *huff* (Sweet Jesus, I can't run like that anymore.)" Mr. Murphy tried to tell John Sterling, trying to catch his breath after finally catching up to the panicked technician.  
"Take your time, take your time," reassured Sterling.  
"Sir, I simply can't! I have to be with me wife! I'm 'bout to be a father!" desperately pleaded the technician.  
"This man left his station without-*Hufff*- without *huff--puff-huff* without making sure he signed for clearance."  
Sterling looked at Daniel Murphy confused, and even a little disgusted. "Woah there, 'Mister Murdoc'...A man doesn't just rush off from his station without good reason."  
Mr. Murphy looked incensed. "He was in the middle of setting up the coding to bridge between the psycho profiling and the autonomous response in the A.I., Sterling! We can't have him stop now!"  
"I SAID ME WIFE'S HAVIN' MY CHILD! I'M LATE AS IT IS! Now let me go!" the tall young tech barked to the security guards, staring daggers at them now, seeming to ignore Sterling and Murphy.  
Sterling blinked in surprise. No wonder why the tall man was running in a panic, he wanted to be there for the birth of his child. "Son, is this your first child?"  
The young man with the dark red hair nodded quickly and side-stepped Sterling before he tried to explain swiftly yet breathlessly, "My first child, yes! (*Huff*) And I don't dare miss it, or I'll never hear the end of it from my sweet Maggie-Grace!"  
Sterling was given pause, some deep chord obviously struck by the young tech's words.  
"Blast it, O'Connor! You get back to your station and finish that programming-!"  
"I can't, Mister Murphy-sir! Me wife needs me!"  
"O'Connor, so help me, you're breaking company policy! You signed the agreement--!"  
And John Sterling suddenly called out, "HOLD IT!" bringing the group of people to silence.  
The grayed man smiled and patted the young red-haired man's shoulder. "Go on, Mister O'Conner. Go to your wife and baby. Congratulations, by the way."  
The younger man grew a grin from ear to ear, half of his panic gone as he gave the elder a firm pat on the shoulder. "Bless ye, Mister Sterling! Apologize to me boss for me!"  
With that, the younger man rushed off past the guards and elders, possibly to the facility parking garage.  
Mr. Murphy tossed his hands up in the air. "Sterling, with all due respect, he's breaking comp'ny policy by simply rushing out in the middle of coding. He'll have to get reprimanded now."  
Sterling pointed to his Irish colleague, "Life goes on, Daniel. The young man's a fledgling father." Sterling then had a distant, wistful face as he went on, "It's a sacred moment that shouldn't be halted or wasted."  
The head man of Murdoc sighed in a sad, tired tone. "Aye, yes, t'is very true...That being said, it is still a transgression against my company's' policy to just up and leave in the middle of a task. It was also part of the contract he signed as he was working his part of the project."  
Mr. Sterling waved off Murphy's concerns. "Relaaax, Daniel. One small hiccup isn't going to slow down our production that much. We've already got the five completed models ready for distribution after we get the brain cases fully programmed. We're pretty much ahead of schedule, so what's to worry about?"

It wouldn't be until an hour later, after other technicians tried to supplant the coding and programming between the emotional and the psychological requirements, that the higher-ups would drop a bomb right into the coalition's lap.  
A communique was received By Mr. Sterling that night that informed him that the government would demand fifteen of these robots. And that each even number of the bots have the full combat capabilities. With that sort of pressure looming over his and the other men's heads, Sterling was now regretting letting that young tech go so soon.  
"Oh...crap."

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xooqDXN85s)  
Meanwhile, a very proud man stares long into the face of his brand new baby boy as he sits next to his wife's hospital bed... The little child had birthmarks on his lips and around his eyes. The baby's mother happily coddled her baby, already singing to him, looking tired but so happy that her child was brought into the world, the father present to finally see the new life they had made together.  
"Such a beautiful little boy, t'is.~" cooed the father, staring at his darling new son like he was worth more than all of the jewels and treasure in all the universe.  
"Yes~...the sweetest little boy in all the wide world," stated the mother, Magdalene Grace O'Connor, in a County Cork Irish brogue. She gently petted around the infant's head when it began to get fussy, softly lulling it into small whimpers and soon murmuring into comfortable silence.  
"Sure enough he is. Heh-heh-heh-heh~." The father's soft chuckle made his eyes sparkle, his smile enough to melt the iciest heart. He only stopped smiling to wonder a moment, then turned to look at his dear wife. "Say, Maggie," he asked softly, "now that 'ees 'ere, what are we t' name 'im? During all the work to make sure he'd come through, I don't think we ever talked about what to name the wee one. And if we 'ad, I may have forgotten in all the excitement."

Maggie looked down to her new child and smiled a knowing smile. "Junior" she stated proudly.  
That gave Duncan pause. His smile waned to a look of awe as he looked to his wife, uncertain. "Surely?"  
"Duncan Aiden O'Connor Junior," Maggie stated proudly before kissing her little one on the head.  
Duncan Senior seemed very unsure. "Oh, come now, dear Maggie-Grace," he tried to complain in self deprecation, "surely ye can think of a better name than mine to call such a sweet young boy."  
The lady in the bed gave him a smug smile and a cocked brow. "I can think of no name better than yours for my dear little boy. You'll just have t' put up with it, won't ye?" That left Duncan laughing carefully, his eyes gleaming. "I'll reckon I can manage.~" he tells her, leaning down to kiss her.  
After a little bit more of them both looking to the child, Maggie sweetly asked her husband, "Would ye like to hold him, then?"  
For once, the tall man seemed as innocently apprehensive as a child who knew better being asked if he would like to hold a glass pitcher. "Are...are you sure?" he asked her, gesturing with his large hands. He even looked to a nearby hospital worker. "Is that alright?"  
After a nod of the head from the present doctor, Maggie carefully shifted the baby towards his father. "Do ye know how to hold a baby?"  
The new father rubbed the side of his neck. "N-not rightly, no," admitted the large man.  
The medical professional came close to make sure the next instant went smoothly. Maggie gently handed over the small bundle of new life over to the father. "Now you just make sure to hold under his head, now...'An ye keep his body over your arm--there ye are."  
The tall man looked into the eyes of his small son, the baby taking a look at him, hardly making a mutter before yawning and turning slightly in the man's large embrace. "Look at 'im, Maggs," the man said in whispered surprise. "He's not cryin' as I hold 'im."  
The lady on the bed grinned up at him with a twinkle in her eye. "That's because he knows his Da is holdin' him safe."  
The large man of a father smiled, his eyes gleaming before his cheeks sported rolling drops of silent pride and joy.  
"My wee, little man," he gently laughed through his tears.

  
The next day, the information about the extension of the order was passed down from the top men and down to all of the levels beneath. Even Atlas arrived to try to offer any assistance he could give. He knew that the five men needed the extra man-power and coders. All he asked for was a completed face-sculpt after all of the tech for the extra bodies was finished.  
It was odd how Eric Atlas was able to know the coalition's needs so soon, but then again, this project was pushed into motion under the United States Government's demand through him.  
For the next few days, the technician for Murdoc Conglomerate, Duncan O'Connor, was on a special suspension.   
They had him working non-stop under heavy security as he worked on the coding needed to finish up the manufacture of the first five units. After that he would make altered programming for ten other units to save on time. The basic idea was to make one master program A.I., then make a slightly altered version of the A.I. to use for the non-combatant nandroids.  
It took two months, but once the A.I. coding was done, the first version was uploaded into the completed bodies and set-up for the first series of tests and scenario training.  
But first, some loose ends had to be taken care of.

"Y-...you're firing me?"  
A familiar, dark-red-headed man was staring in disbelief at a quiet, older man with copper and gray hair, sitting across from him at a large oaken desk.  
"Mister O'Conner... you signed an agreement that said that you were to complete your task, on time, with no caveats, no distractions and no excuses."  
Duncan looked at the elder man in disbelief. "Mister Murphy, it was made common knowledge that my wife was pregnant a whole eight months in advance. I can't believe you're doing this just because I needed to be with me wife."  
The Murdoc CEO waved him off and shook his head. "That's neither here nor there, Mister O'Connor. You were given solid stipulations, you were given a specific deadline. Due to your outburst and running out mid-task, as was the conditions of the contract you signed, we have to cut ye loose."  
There was no menace or malice in Mister Murdoc's voice, no sore feelings displayed on his old face. Mister O'Connor's displayed deep shock, the color running from his already pale features.  
"Sir, my wife is not well... I only discovered that she has been an anemic after my son was born. I need this job to support all of us. I won't be able to keep the house otherwise."  
"That furnished house was also part of your being sent here to America, Duncan. You will have to vacate the premises in a week's time."  
Still, Duncan stared at the older man with deepening shock and horror. "You're takin' our house?" he whispered with an appalled look.  
"It was all in the contract...do your tasks without fail in three months-" Murphy began, but was quickly interrupted with a bang of a fist on his desk and Duncan stood up so fast from his chair in frustration that it got knocked back a few feet behind him.  
"I DID do the bleedin' task within three months! I even did it in record time, after all of the hemmin' and hawin' of the other technicians and code-monkeys doin' nothin' but tryin' to find a way t' cheat ye blind! Were it not for me, yer bloody programmin' would still be stuck in the beta stage!"  
"Mister O'Connor," advised the Murdoc man, "another outburst like that and I will not only have you escorted off these grounds, but I'll make sure you spend the lot of your extra time in a hoosegow."  
"How?" asked Duncan. "How can a man who wants to make something as wonderful as the artificial havin' something so preciously genuine as a heart...be so coldly cruel?"  
Mister Murphy sat in silence, unable to look the younger man in the eyes as the shame and the reluctant resolution was painted all over his tired face.  
"Were it a better world, Mister O'Connor, and I truly had the power, I would have had you already finished all of this programming before your wife was ready to pop. But I had to do it the way the law and the industry allows, or not at all."  
Both men stare at each other without a sound between them for a while.  
"Is there even a severance package?" Duncan asked desperately.  
Mr. Murphy only shook his head with a close of his eyes, slowly leaning back in his office chair. Duncan walked back seeming in a daze, his eyes looking about before he tripped a bit on the chair he had knocked over behind him.  
"Duncan...you're a bright man, still full of youth, yet. And- you have a child to care for... If you were able to get a position with my company, and then with something as world-changign' as this project is shapin' up to be...then I know you'll land sure on your feet again." His offer of hope seemed to be falling on the tin ear of a man bewildered at the moment. He just didn't want O'Connor doing anything unnecessary or rash.  
"Uh...there is another issue, Duncan... Our records say that the remnants of one of our failed experiments has gone missing. Do ye know anyone who might know something as to the whereabouts of a missing shoulders and head of one of our company's maid-droids?"  
Slowly, Duncan raised his eyes to look at the head of Murdoc, answering with a flat and near-lifeless, "No, I just do coding."  
More silence.  
"...If you like, I can give you a decent reference. You *did* do decent work here, O'Connor. A talent like yours shouldn't be going to waste in an industry like this," the older Irishman tried to offer Duncan; anything to keep him from leaning toward either revenge or suicide... but Duncan was seemingly bereft beyond either option.  
"Thank you for that, sir. I would appreciate it," Duncan answered him in almost robotic professionalism.

That night, Duncan told his wife everything, and they started to pack things up to move out of the nice middle-class neighborhood that they had arrived in. Not even enough time to paint the walls a different shade as they had planned... Magdalene Grace O'Connor was going to run out of her medicine soon, and she was still direly needed by little Junior...  


[Comments are welcomed.]


End file.
